“Hi, Ate,” Sari said, scooping a bit of pinakbet and crispy tawilis fish on to her plate. She drizzled fish sauce with calamansi on the tawilis and ate that with a bit of squash from the pinakbet and rice. Always with rice, of course.
“Close your mouth when you eat, Sari,” Selene said, and she was in her pajamas and eating dinner too. “Late ka na.”
“Hello, ikaw din,” Sari chastised her older sister. “Busy at work, teh?”
“Eh, I always eat dinner late.” Selene shrugged, and Sari kind of felt bad that she didn’t know that about her older sister. Lipa might as well have been a country away from how often they actually saw each other face to face. Once a month, maybe. Twice, if there was an occasion. “Food delivery always takes forever.”
A pause. As was the natural trajectory of Sari and Selene’s conversations. It was a little weird, she was used to talking to her older sister with Sam there to sort of be the light and happy part of the conversation. But Sam was busy with her life, and now Sari and Selene had to suck it up and talk.
“Something’s different about you,” Selene commented, peering through the screen as if Sari was holding up a sign listing all of those differences for her.
Well, I’m using a prank war with the new shop next door as a distraction from the fact that I’m scared of being alone in this house where our grandmother was alone, but other than that, I’m good, she wanted to blurt out, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that one simply said over the phone. In a family where your parents took up most of the time scratching and clawing at each other, you kind of learned, as a kid, to help yourself. Find out how to do things yourself, because the adults in your life couldn’t help you. That was the way her sister had coped, and that was the way Sari had learned to become.
So it affected her own adult life. She was still doing...relatively fine.
“I got a haircut two weeks ago, does that count?” Sari asked, spearing a few green beans with her fork and eating them. “Anyway, you didn’t call to ask me how I changed, did you?”
Knowing Selene, there was always a reason for her calls. Sari didn’t know what her sister was like with her friends in Manila, but she never called her sisters if she didn’t have a reason to.
“It’s December 14,” Selene pointed out, dipping some sushi in soy sauce and wasabi before she ate it. It looked really good, and had Sari’s mouth watering eighty-five kilometers away. “I figured between Sam moving and your holiday rush, there would be some confusion as to when you’re attending Simbang Gabi in two days.”
“Oh,” Sari said, nodding in understanding. Simbang Gabi was just as much a part of Christmas tradition as putting up the parol was. It had mattered to her, being dumped in Lipa at the tender age of fourteen with her sisters, uprooted from the Manila she knew and a little lost in a city that until then, had been a vacation spot. Tradition had helped her find her feet again.
Her grandmother had been only too willing to have Sari come along to the farms, to the factories, explained the qualities of a good bowl of lomi, and Simbang Gabi. Sari drank it all in, and it became a part of her routine, long after her lola had gone.
Sari liked going to the dawn masses at the Cathedral, just because there was always food after, and she liked going before she went to the café to roast beans for the day. Sam preferred to attend the mass the night before, at around 8 pm, so she could still get her wish without having to get out of bed at the literal asscrack of dawn. They compromised, in that Sari put up a fight about it every year, but gave in to Sam’s requests to attend the evening mass instead.
That Selene thought it was imperative to call her sisters separately to discuss it meant it was a thing. Had she talked to Sam? Did Sam say she didn’t want to talk to Sari about it?
Sari inhaled sharply and rubbed her temple, which was starting to hurt.
“Hey, stop that. Your hands are dirty,” Selene argued through the phone, immediately making Sari stop.
“Sorry,” Sari muttered. “You talked to Sam?”
“Yes,” Selene said, adding more wasabi to her soy sauce. “The house has really kept her busy. I think she’s staying there tonight.”
“Right.” Sari nodded, because she was totally informed of that fact. “I take it she wants to attend the evening mass at St. Therese on Alaminos? That’s at eight.”
“Yup, that mass exactly.” Selene had once commented to her that it was amazing that she knew where all the churches were, and what time their masses were. It was the kind of information Sari didn’t even realize she was storing until she had to use it. But she had to admit, it came in handy on Holy Week, where they had to do the Visita Iglesia thing. “And I take it you want to attend the Simbang Gabi at the Cathedral.”
“Ate, it’s two blocks away! If Sam still actually lives here, and actually gives a real shit about it, it’s not that much of a hassle.” Sari smooshed a squash in half and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. But either Selene hadn’t noticed Sari’s agitation, or she’d decided to let it slide, because she just shrugged.
“I guess you guys are going to have to attend Simbang Gabi separately,” she said simply, eating another sushi roll. “You’re okay with that, right?”
“I’m always okay,” Sari assured her sister, knowing full well that her sister didn’t believe her.
“Okay. And that blend for the Carlton Hotel, is that going well?”
Sari frowned at her sister through the screen. “Define going well, Ate. This is my part of the business, I’ll let you know if I need your help.”
“I’m just saying,” she said with all the arrogance of someone who was two years older. “I haven’t had an update with you about it.”
“Because I’m still trying to perfect the roast, and seriously, lay off, okay?” she said a little testily.
“Fine,” Selene finally huffed. They exchanged a goodbye, and she was left alone in the too big, too silent house again.
And still no reply from Sam.
This is getting ridiculous, Sari told herself, standing up to clean up her plate after she finished eating dinner. She was starting to miss Kylo, which was always a bad sign.
She tried to go to sleep. She really did. But for someone who was used to living with her sisters, and before that, her grandmother, the lack of sounds of existence aside from the occasional passing car was maddeningly silent for her.
So, when it was about four in the morning, she drove to the Laneways to open the café a little early. They opened at seven anyway, and it was always good for her to catch up on things like...inventory or something.
Sari had just come up to her coffee lab, leaving her keys and her purse in their usual place on the daybed, ready to get roasting or inventory-ing, when the opening chords of a very familiar song started to play through her walls. And almost like he had been waiting there for her, Gabriel’s head popped up on his side of the window, dancing and singing along to “You Make My Dreams” like nobody was watching.
Well, technically, that was true.
Gabriel was really into it too, spinning and head banging along like he had an entire audience eagerly anticipating every move. She was a big fan of his hip thrusts.
Sari decided to walk over to the window and give it a solid knock, shocking him so much that his spatula went flying, sending batter all over his side of the window. Oops.
“Sorry,” she said through the window, smiling sheepishly as he sprayed some disinfectant on it and wiped it off.
“It’s fine,” he said, but she could barely hear his voice over the music. “You okay?”
Sari nodded, and even if it wasn’t exactly the truth, having him literally dancing into her day was more than enough to make her feel okay for now. And she didn’t know if it was the time of day, or the fact that she really liked this song, but seeing Gabriel was actually a comfort to her.
“Turn it up!”
she told him through the window, and Gabriel nodded and turned up the volume a little bit, just in time for Aegis’ “Halik” to come on. He pointed to her, because there was no other way to start singing an Aegis song. She pointed at him, and a mutual agreement was made as they both launched headfirst into the song.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, Sari sang and danced her heart out in the middle of her own coffee lab, feeling a little less lonely as she sang the world’s cheesiest song to the boy on the other side of the window, who was singing too.
Chapter Ten
December 16
The first night of Simbang Gabi ended the way it always did, with the bells of the Cathedral ringing into the dawn. Sari stepped out through the side exit of the Cathedral, right next to the crypt where her grandmother was buried. She smiled and sent a little prayer up to Lola Rosario, as she always did when she passed this way on her walk back to the house. It was still early enough for it to be cold, and because it was the first day, there were more people in the church than ever. Despite the other day’s impromptu karaoke session at the coffee lab, Sari had still yawned through the service. Also despite Sam’s lack of a reply last night, and not a single, I’m home, Ate, or a where are you? text, Sari still stopped by the bibingka stand to get them breakfast. Sari liked hers with cheese or sugar grilled on top, Sam preferred red egg on hers, and if Sari remembered right, Selene was the weirdo who enjoyed hers with shredded coconut on top.
No matter the topping, what was important was that the bibingka was there, hot and fresh, not too cloying or heavy, and just right.
She wondered if Gabriel knew how to make bibingka.
“Nope, don’t go there,” she told herself, even if in the twenty-four hours since their clandestine karaoke session, Sari had gone there and back multiple times. Her face now went hot and flushy whenever she thought about the Baker Boy Next Door, the exact opposite reaction she’d wanted when she started this little prank war.
So if she’d dozed off a couple of times during the mass, she blamed Gabriel for it, without question. How is it possible, she wondered as she paid for the bibingka and walked in the direction of their house, to want to wring someone’s neck so much and still feel so comfortable around them?
Because she didn’t hate him. No. It was too strong a word to use for someone who was buzzing around her head like a fly. Sometimes she closed her eyes in the middle of planning a new scheme, and she could just picture his face (and that smile) grinning back at her like a puppy with a bone. The more she saw it, the more she wanted to wipe that grin off his face.
Or maybe kiss it. One or the other.
She made it to their house without incident. Sari unlocked the gate and went up the steps to the door. She expected to go in and slide into bed for a few hours of sleep before she had to go to the café. She did not expect to trip on an errant badminton racket on the way in and find the absolute mess that had taken over the living room.
“Susmaryosep,” Sari cursed, nearly causing her to drop her bibingka. Her grandmother would have hissed at her for that, seeing as she had just come from church and all, but, oh well.
Sunlight was starting to peek through the bay windows behind her, giving her enough light to see the entire living room looked like a typhoon had blown through it. Stuff was draped over chairs, stacked in messy, seemingly random piles. Kylo had abandoned his usual bed in the corner to sleep on top of a small mountain of t-shirts and jeans in front of the kitchen door. He also had a shoe hanging out of his mouth, now half-covered in slobber.
“What? Don’t! I have a dog!” Sam’s voice was still a bit sleep-rough as she jolted awake from her position on the floor, where she’d slept on her yoga mat and used a sarong as a blanket. She winced and grabbed the side of her neck. “Stiff neck, ow, ow.”
“And good morning to you too,” Sari said, trying to decide if she was still mad at Sam for yesterday, or if she forgave her for it, because clearly, Sam had other things on her mind. “That’s what you get for sleeping on the floor. What are you doing on the floor, by the way?”
Sari tiptoed around the mess of her sister’s belongings, forging a path to the kitchen after leaving the bibingka on the dining room table. She might as well make coffee to go with the bibingka while she grabbed utensils.
Kylo lifted his head when Sari approached him. The dog was so massive that he blocked the whole doorway, preventing her access.
“Move,” Sari told Kylo, who blinked and went back to sleep. Sari sighed and looked around the topsy turvy living room. “Sam, seriously. What is this mess?”
“I’m wrapping Christmas gifts for the whole barangay,” Sam said sarcastically, putting the yoga mat to good use for a quick Downward Dog, Plank then Chaturanga. Sari had never seen anyone do yoga so sarcastically. Sam stood up on the mat and raised her arms over her head before she swan dove into a forward fold. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m panic-packing!”
Sari watched her sister with mild fascination as she went down into a Plank pose, then up to Downward Dog, creating a pattern she repeated a few more times, like she was stretching herself to wakefulness.
“It’s a little over a week to Christmas and I have nothing ready. I haven’t even made a dent in my Christmas shopping list, and the farm’s Christmas party is in three days, and there’s a huge debate about if we should have a karaoke machine or not. I missed Simbang Gabi last night, so clearly, I’m not going to get my wish!”
“Oh.” Sari nodded, finally giving up and taking a bibingka from the plastic bag, eating it sans utensils. The charred banana leaf at the bottom was more than enough to use as a plate. “You still have time, though.”
“I have to comb through everything, take out what doesn’t bring me joy!”
“And you decided to find joy at five in the morning?”
“Hey, don’t give me your judgey face, Ate. You’re the one attending Simbang Gabi even if she doesn’t go to church the rest of the year.”
“I’m keeping up tradition.” Sari shrugged. “Someone has to.”
“Tradition! What is this, Fiddler on the Roof?” Sam scoffed, attempting to put her books in neater piles before she saw the mess of her old college notes on the side and attempted to fix those.
“When did you see Fiddler on the Roof?” Sari managed to open the door long enough to let herself into the kitchen, and used Kylo’s backside as a door stopper.
“This isn’t about Fiddler on the Roof! I was making a point.”
“Which is what?” Sari emerged from the kitchen with forks and mugs for the coffee she was already brewing, and went back to her seat on the dining table, the same seat she had occupied since she was fourteen. She picked up another bibingka.
“That you’re just as stuck as I am,” Sam said, finally putting her hands in prayer position for the last time, nodding her head once before she sat at the chair across from Sari’s and took a disk of bibingka. As Sari predicted, her sister went for the red egg. “You don’t want to admit this to yourself, but you’re stuck too! You’re living in Lola’s house, doing her job, in her café. And now you’re doing Simbang Gabi because she did, not because you have something to pray for. And I know you don’t believe that the Simbang Gabi wish thing is real.”
Sari frowned, her hand paused mid-pour of freshly ground beans into the French press. That was the last thing she expected her sister to say, but the more the truth sank in, the more it hurt.
Ma. Rosario Tomas was a great grandmother. She loved her granddaughters the way they needed it when their parents couldn’t be in a room together for longer than ten minutes. But she lived a very small, particular life, with very little room for new things. After losing her husband in the eighties, she never saw the need to change up her life very much.
She’d made it clear that taking on three granddaughters had been far on the list of things she wanted to do, and Sam had been very
vocal about how Lola Rosario made the girls bend to fit her life, instead of the other way around.
But Sari’s life wasn’t boring, it was...structured. There was a rhythm to it that she knew to follow, routines that she could rely on. Christmases and holidays and planting seasons came and went, and she knew how to move through all of that. She had nothing to complain about.
She certainly wasn’t stuck. So why was she so mad at Sam for moving out? Why was it that from the moment she walked into the church that morning, her only thought had been to wish that Sam wouldn’t move out of the house?
“You’re tired,” Sari concluded, standing up to retrieve the coffee from the kitchen. “Go to bed. I’ll clean this up.”
Sam must have realized that she crossed a line, because she stopped eating her bibingka and took the coffee when Sari handed her a mug anyway. “Sari, I’m sorry, I...”
“It’s fine, Sam,” Sari cut her sister off, because she didn’t want to hear it, or think about it. “Go to sleep.”
With a quick hug, her sister went back to her room with the coffee and another bibingka. Kylo looked up at the sound of the bedroom door closing, and seemed to look to Sari for confirmation that everything was fine.
“You go to sleep too,” Sari informed him, and Kylo made no further protest, and went to sleep.
Sari looked at the mess of her sister’s belongings and felt her shoulders drop. She never liked it when she made her sisters upset, even when she was upset with them. But Sam had made Sari realize that she wanted certain...things outside of what she already had. She wanted a life that wasn’t just about being alone in this house.
She looked at the photo of her grandmother that was sitting on top of the piano. In it, Rosario Tomas looked out in the distance, laughing at some invisible thing. Sari glared at her grandmother.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but whatever it is, it’s not funny,” Sari said before she started to clean up after Sam, brushing aside thoughts of her own life as she took stock of just how much her sister was taking with her when she left. She wanted to flop down on the couch and sleep, but she knew she couldn’t.
Sweet on You Page 8
